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mind tech: f a q - Cutting Through Delusion
What Is Chod? by Anreal

When you finally realize that there is no concrete ‘self’, and that you represent a Dance of Form with a million potential faces which are all you, it is one of the most liberating events of your life. It was for me. The fact that we represent a pool of pure potential for any and every form should send you into raptures ...- Adamas, Buddha Brats - A Modern Tale of Enlightenment
Image: Nathan Sawaya

Q: What is Chod?

A: The type of Chod that we practice is specifically known as ‘Tibetan Chod’ or ‘The Chod of Machig Labdron’.

This practice is in essence a detailed visualization that involves the ritualistic preparation and then offering up as sacrificial substance of ones physical body in order to destroy ones attachment to the concept of ‘self’ as an isolated and concrete entity. By continuously and ritualistically destroying our conditioned body images one destroys the erroneous concept that we are anything other than pure potential.

Cut Delusion at the Root

“According to the view of Chod, demons are ideas, attachments and fears that are obstacles to Awareness because they obscure our true empty, Non-Dual Nature. The central tenet of Chod is that “the only demon that needs to be slain is the Demon of the Illusion of Self” because it is identification with the ‘self’ as separate and concrete, that is the root of all Suffering. Once this central demon is slain all other demons disappear because if you cut the root, the tree withers and dies. Chod means to “cut through” and in order to cut through this false identity we have to destroy the idea that our bodies are concrete. This is the best way to remind the ‘self’ of its True Nature – that the mind as well as the body is in fact a pool of pure potential manifesting as sound, light and sensation.

The traditional practice of Chod involves going to an isolated or scary place like a graveyard or charnel ground where you visualize yourself being chopped into pieces and torn apart by beasts and any frightful apparitions that the dualistic mind can contrive of. This practice is done visually because the human body is seen as a precious vehicle but it is our attachment to it and fear of damage that binds us into Form. This is the very reason why we will then manifest situations in which our bodies are damaged or destroyed because everything we fear sooner or later comes into form to be dealt with.

The idea is to mentally offer yourself to anything you might normally fear. This could be robbers, murderers, rapists, wild animals or any other form of physical destruction like car crashes and debilitating diseases. The more extreme the visualisation the better it works. You boldly engage what you dread the most in order to overcome it, giving away your physical body to anyone or anything that wants a piece of you. When you have done a million times worse to yourself in your mind than anyone can ever do to you, what is there ever to fear from reality again?

One of the by products of this practise is that you become immune to disease. Chod practitioners were often sent to plague areas to treat the sick because they would be immune to the ‘illusion of disease’, having already done the worst they could imagine to themselves. They had such a diffuse sense of self that there was literally no difference between them and the disease, so it had no effect on them. A lot of one’s identity is tied up in our personalized visualizations of self and breaking it frees us from a world of suffering.”- Adamas, Buddha Brats – A Modern Tale of Enlightenment (Chapter 15, The Left-Hand Path)

Chop Chop

“When you finally realize that there is no concrete ‘self’, and that you represent a Dance of Form with a million potential faces which are all you, it is one of the most liberating events of your life. It was for me and should be for you too. Those that fear losing their personalities are clearly deluded. You cannot lose what you never had in the first place and the fact that we represent a pool of pure potential for any and every form should send you into raptures.

This is why I religiously chop myself to pieces and offer up the bits to whomever wants a piece of me, since ‘it is all Self’ after all. The more one chops the less easy it becomes to hold onto the belief that you are a separate discrete entity, and that there is actually anyone else out there at all.”- Adamas, Buddha Brats – A Modern Tale of Enlightenment (Chapter 25, The Hero Tantra)

Please remember that most of the information on the site is aimed at readers of the BUDDHA BRATS e-book.